The investments committee of the UC Board of Regents will meet
on campus today to hear a request for a full proposal to divest
holdings from four foreign companies engaged in business in Sudan,
a country whose government has committed genocide in western Darfur
for more than two years.
The request, which will be submitted by Student Regent Adam
Rosenthal, will mark the first time the board has directly
discussed the issue or that a regent has shown support for
divestment from Sudan. The board’s official response to the
request for divestment so far has been “no
comment.”
Rosenthal said divestment would be a very serious and complex
financial undertaking, but a proposal for divestment should be
developed and considered as the University of California plays a
significant financial role in the world.
“(A proposal for divestment) would send a very clear
message that companies need to get out of Sudan or need to convince
the government that continued genocide in Darfur is
unacceptable,” Rosenthal said.
The UC has only divested twice in its history, once from South
Africa in response to apartheid and once from the tobacco industry
due to public health concerns.
Rosenthal added that the UC has a social responsibility to
ensure it is not contributing in any way to the mass murder of a
civilian population.
“We are responsible to the people of California, who I
have no doubt would think continued investments in these businesses
would be egregious and distasteful,” he said.
The current conflict began in February 2003, when a group of
non-Arab Sudanese from Darfur rebelled against the government. In
response, the Sudanese government and government-aided Muslim
militias have killed thousands of non-Arabs and displaced
millions.
Since last winter, students from UC campuses have been
advocating for divestment from Sudan as a means of putting economic
pressure on the government in order to aid the people of
Darfur.
Adam Sterling, a UCLA student and an executive member of the UC
Divestment Task Force, said though divestment is a serious
endeavor, the UC is in a position to set a strong precedent.
“We are in a unique time in history. This is the first
time that a genocide has been labeled as it is ongoing. The regents
have a unique and feasible opportunity to show that they
don’t support these acts,” he said.
But divestment from Sudan may be complicated because the UC
invests in indexes rather than individual companies.
“UC’s investment in the four companies is not in
companies held individually ““ where you can simply sell money
in company A and buy shares in company B ““ but rather in a
fund where the investment strategy and instrument is based on a
cumulative, holistic index/cross-section of companies,” said
UC spokesman Trey Davis in an e-mail.
But Sterling said a decision to divest would not only be morally
important but also economically feasible. He pointed to Stanford
and Harvard universities, which have successful divested from Sudan
already.
“The regents have already expressed concern that it is
difficult to take out from individual companies without disrupting
the balance of funds. But it is possible and can be done. It has
been done by various other institutions already,” Sterling
said.
The investments committee meeting will be preceded by a student
rally in Meyerhoff Park, put on by the Divestment Task Force, to
show support for the resolution. Sterling stressed that the rally
is not a student protest.
“We just want to support the regents’ efforts in
looking into the issue of divestment,” he said.
The investments committee will meet in the James West Alumni
Center at 1:30 p.m. today.